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Gaudium et Spes

The Second Vatican Council's document on the church in the modern world was the culmination of the council's efforts "to descend from the icy heights of abstraction to respond to human lives as they really are being lived," said Jesuit Father John O'Malley, a leading historian.

And, looking at the lives of real people, the document "Gaudium et Spes" gave "pride of place" to reflections on marriage and family life, O'Malley said Jan. 25, inaugurating the "Gaudium et Spes" Chair at Rome's Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for the Sciences of Marriage and Family.